Three and a half years ago Gabrielle Wortman stood on a stage at the Los Angeles Tennis Center and performed for a crowd of thousands at UCLA's annual Spring Sing. At the time she was a music media and management student at UCLA. Now she, along with her new band Smoke Season, is traveling in a tour van on an seven-city tour up the West Coast. Read more...

Photo: Jason Rosen (left) and UCLA alumna Gabrielle Wortman (right) comprise the band Smoke Season. Having played twice at Spring Sing, Wortman said her performances at UCLA prepared her for her musical career. (La Famos)

Eric Tanguy’s catalog of more than 100 musical compositions has resonated with audiences in more than 25 countries at major venues like Carnegie Hall and earned him designation as “Composer of the Year” twice in France. Read more...

Photo: French composer Eric Tanguy is a guest lecturer of a composition seminar at the Herb Alpert School of Music. The UCLA Philharmonia will perform Tanguy’s homage to composer Henri Dutilleux, “Affettuoso,” Thursday. (Max Himmelrich/Daily Bruin)

There’s something about the British Isles that consistently produces musical greatness; it is inherent to the country, its people and its culture. Popular culture has been defined by bands and artists from the UK; they have consistently created new genres and musical subcultures – from the Beatles’ psychedelic rock in the ’60s all the way through to the explosion of dubstep and drum ‘n’ bass in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Read more...

Photo: Scottish DJ Rustie has taken the American-born genre of trap music and made it his own through forceful drops and subtle, layered instrumentation. (Warp)